Andy Reisinger, PhD (physics, from Canterbury University), New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute, Victoria University of Wellington

Migrated to New Zealand from Germany in 1994 after completing an undergraduate degree in physics, specialising in atmospheric physics and chemistry. Currently a Senior Research Fellow at the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington. Before that, senior adviser at the Ministry for the Environment on climate change, particularly climate change science, from 2000 to 2006, and from 2006 to 2008 worked for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, responsible for managing the production of the Synthesis Report that summarised the panel's assessment of our state of knowledge on climate change in 2007.
My specialty areas are communicating and integrating scientific information on climate change from a range of areas to support governments, businesses and communities in adapting to the impacts of climate change and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit future climate change.

Abstract

I will present my personal views on two key issues: one is the process by which we acquire and communicate scientific knowledge about complex issues such as climate change, and the second is how society can make sense of the inevitable uncertainties that remain in this scientific knowledge. I intend to first summarise the key concepts underlying concern about climate change, and discuss where and why different people appear to reach different conclusions regarding appropriate responses to these concerns. I will then discuss what I regard as the key strengths and weaknesses of scientific inquiry in the context of climate change, and attempt to clear up some commonly held misconceptions about what science can and can't tell us about climate change. In this discussion I will try to draw a careful distinction between what the science community regards as robust findings and key uncertainties, and what are in the end social, cultural and ethical choices in how we respond to these strengths and limits of scientific knowledge.

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